


sandcastles

by cattlaydee



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Character Death, F/M, Infidelity, Relationship Problems, The Reynold's Pamphlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 06:30:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7833907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattlaydee/pseuds/cattlaydee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes 2 years for Eliza to get from the Reynolds Pamphlet, to forgiveness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sandcastles

**Author's Note:**

> this is mostly the Hamilton timeline from the musical, with bits of history thrown in there. i've played with the dates a little, but if LMM can do it, then so can I.
> 
> the title is lifted from the Beyonce song on "Lemonade", which BTW, Cynthia Erivo did a cover of for a Ham4Ham and absolutely killed it.

**July 1797**  
  
He doesn't even have the decency to warn her.  
  
She is out about the city when the pamphlet hits, an early morning excursion where she will pick up some sewing supplies and bread that one of the servants forgot. She stood at the bakery counter, a bag on her arm, folded hands across her waist, and a soft smile as she waited.  
  
She hears furtive whispers, but pays them no mind. Why should she, after all? There is always some kind of gossip around the city. With Alexander's place in the public eye, she will be noticed, and there will be a whisper or two, but he's been out of the spotlight long enough it hardly ever happens and so she gives it no other thought.  
  
It's only when she looks away from the counter that she realizes they're all staring at her, and she's never seen expressions so scandalized. Her stomach begins to churn and her arms go cold. _Oh Alexander_ , she thinks, perfectly conscious of her husbands track record, _whatever have you done now?_  
  
An older woman snaps at a group of young girls who are gaping. "Can't you leave her well enough alone? Has she not endured enough?"  
  
She stays at her father's estate for a spell. She takes the children, and her clothes, and some of her favorite things, even before he returns from his office, his haven at his firm that he has taken to to shield himself from the shame he is sure awaits him at the homestead, and she disappears. He writes her a letter, then many more, demanding she at least return the children but she only answers that she believes the country air is best for them and if he so chooses, of course the family estate will welcome him and it would be good for him to.  
  
He never shows.  
  
Of course he doesn't.  
  
The coward.

* * *

Summer goes, and brings with it's end, the fall. She cannot stay in Albany forever, so she awakens one day and tells her Father they will be leaving, thanks him for letting them stay for a few months, grinds her teeth together as he takes her forearms in hand and squeezes, pressing a kiss to her forehead. They leave that weekend.  
  
When she finally gets back to the city, the home is atrocious. It has not been fully kept in some time, the servants having been dismissed. The kitchen does not even looked lived in; Alexander's office looks to be the only place disturbed, parchment and ink strewn about in a haphazard way reflective of himself alone and she half sighs, half growls with a roll of her eyes.  
  
It's nearing the winter, and then there will be fewer resources to sustain them. She has work to do.

* * *

He looks genuinely surprised to see all of them.  
  
The youngest, of course, fling themselves to him. Alexander, James and John practically climb on him from all sides, eliciting an almost inhuman sort of chuckle from his chest. He stares at her, holding their infant in her arms, born just before the scandal hit, his eyes wide as if he is trying to convince himself she is actually there. She hugs the child to her chest, turns herself away from him and breaks their gaze. There is silence, and then she hears him as he clears his throat, beginning to speak with a weak voice as he greets the boys with his words, telling them that they've grown so much over the summer. Telling them how he missed them so.  
  
Her sister hangs back with her, a gentle hand up between her shoulder blades and Eliza can feel her eyes watching her face. Angelica's namesake stands in between her remaining siblings (Phillip, who she emulated always, firmly standing back as well) and her mother, eyes darting back and forth, not quite sure what to do. She has heard her mother weeping when she doesn't know anyone is close, noticed her brother's dark expression when she asks about Father, how he tells her to nevermind it for now. She knows Father must have done something awful, but it has been 3 months since they have seen him, and she didn't even get to say goodbye before their trip, and he looks sad too, and tired, and under the weight of her three brothers, climbing the man as if he were a tree, he looks right at her and offers a weak smile.  
  
She hopes Mother won't feel bad. She flings herself at him, pushing past the boys and ignoring their protests as she grips her arms around his midsection as tight as she can, burying her face in her chest as she starts to cry softly. _Something_ is wrong; this wasn't like the trips before, when Father wouldn't come. Father was not mentioned, not once, in the three months in Albany, not unless one of the children asked first. Her mother did not speak of him coming to visit, or of going home. Aunt Angelica had a storm that never seemed to leave her face.  
  
Angie feels his breath hitch, and hears a strangled sound from his throat as he breaks free of the boys to wrap his arms around her as well. She feels him press his nose into her scalp, feels the heat of his breath as he breathes into her hair and it's only now that he breaks as well.  
  
Eliza watches as he digs his finger's into their daughter's dress, pulling her close as he begins to softly weep into her hair. She gets angry at herself, at the little flair of warmth that blossoms under her ribs, and immediately wants to throw up. ** _How dare he_** , the anger swells once more to replace the warmth, **_how dare he be so careless with something so precious_**. She unconsciously tightens her grip on the baby, pulling her closer as she tries to keep from trembling with rage, and the cry it draws from the infant breaks Alexander and his daughter from their revelry. He looks up and immediately pales underneath his tears and she wonders how acute it is, the fury written all over her face.  
  
She hopes that it burns.

* * *

Their summers have always traditionally been social. Between the commemoration of severing ties with the mother country, the weather is mostly enjoyable, save for the unbearable heat that sometimes accompanies it, and Alexander has often found himself playing with the children in the yard, or in the water, if they wanted to go swimming. She had often found this to be some of the happiest of times, and she watches them leave one morning with a tightness that has only grown worse over the past few months.  
  
Phillip should be home from school soon for a visit and she finds the tightness alleviates a bit at the thought. Her namesake squalls next to her, just a little older than a year now, and vocal as her father, Lord help them all. Over a year. It's July again.  
  
She closes her eyes against the thought that makes her mind spin and her stomach churn once more. She clutches the toddler close, and she feels her press a snotty nose to her jaw, feels her tiny cold fingers grabbing near her neck as they bury in her dark hair.  
  
"Momma..."  
  
She stands and picks the little girl up with her, settling her on her hip and heading to the kitchen. She retrieves some small pieces of apple that she has sliced and returns to the sitting room, putting Elizabeth on the floor with the fruit and picking up her thread-work once more.  
  
They are having a gathering at the end of this week, she knows. She also knows that everyone is just dying to see it, to see how the Hamilton's are doing a year after the scandal. It won't be the first time they've hosted-there is little else to do in the winter months, and so there were many a dinner party they attended, Alexander trying to maintain some kind of face and Eliza just trying to survive. She hated the way they looked at the both of them, at her with abject pity and at him with disgust and judgement. For all her anger at him for his actions, she still felt the need to defend him. _Do you know_ , she had thought silently, _do you all understand what he's done for you? for this country? Do you know of the things he has sacrificed?_  
  
As for their relationship, it existed. That is to say, it functioned as a marriage should, for all intents and purposes. He went to work at the law firm, and she stayed home with the children, tending to the youngest few while she sent the others off for lessons and otherwise took care of the home. In the evening, Alexander was sure to never miss a meal, a noticeable change from before the Reynolds incident. Before that, he would be out as late as he pleased, and once home, would sometime take his meal in his study. Now, he addressed each and every child, asking them about their day, about their lessons.  
  
He was trying. It would be cruel and unfair not to give him credit for that.  
  
It had happened, on 3 or 4 occasions, that she had allowed him to touch her at night. Allowed him to run his hand up and down the side of her body, allowed him to pull her close and kiss her neck. A few times she has rolled onto her back and let him settle between her legs, but it has not had any of the warmth, or the need, or the passion of before. She had always allowed it, he had never forced himself upon her, but it had never felt necessarily right.  
  
Sometimes he looks at her when they are done, or when they have just retired and the light dims, and just watches her. She usually turns on her side, away from him, pulling the blankets up to her shoulders. Sometimes she feels him shift, as if he is going to reach out to her, but he stops. Sometimes she doesn't feel anything at all.  
  
"It's been almost a year," he whispers one night, not long ago. "You have to forgive me."  
  
Her spine turns to ice and she stiffens. She doesn't push his hand from her waist. She doesn't say a word.  
  
She doesn't _have_ to do anything.

* * *

The dinner is an unexpected success.  
  
The children are staying with a few blocks away with family friends, and so once the guests filter out and the servants leave for the night, they are alone.  
  
She had been aware of the eyes fixed on the pair of them all night, searching for some hint of dissension in the ranks but there is nothing there. Alexander smiles, and jests, and speaks in his way that enchants a room, and soon, it's almost like it was before.  
  
There had been a moment, when the room felt too warm (she ascribed _that_ to too much wine), when she had spun as they danced and Alexander was there, a playful smile on his face that made it feel like a winter's ball and she felt something inside of her begin to melt.  
  
Now, with everyone gone, she takes his hand and tugs him up the stairs to their bedroom. He seems surprised; in all of their couplings since last summer, it has always been him, in the dark of their bedroom, wordlessly initiating the movements and her acquiescing like someone who has been asked to perform some menial task. Now, as she pulls him up the stairs, she sees his face open up like it hasn't in months; she reads it as hope.  
  
His hands are clumsy, the movements sloppy as he paws at her bodice and so she does it herself, unlacing the front, pulling it down as she sits at the foot of the bed and pushes her way back.  
  
He is looking at her, uncertain and drunk. She's not sure if it's the look, or the heat, or the drink, or a little bit of all of it, but she curls her legs under her for a moment and beckons him. He crawls onto the bed, toward her, and she unfolds once more, shimmying down so she's fully on her back, her skirts hiking up and let's Alexander settle above her, right between her legs, one arm holding him up next to her head, the other working sloppily at the laces of his breeches.  
  
He settles. "You are sure? I don't want anything to be influencing you when you normally..."  
  
She stops him by taking his hand and pulling him over. She's not sure how she feels. She definitely _wants_ ; she feels fluid, and warm, and desirous, and there's a part of her in the back of her mind that wants to weep, because _Eliza_ , it screams, _what are you doing, you're giving all of yourself again, he doesn't **deserve** it..._  
  
Her dress sits around her waist, skirts hiked up and bodice pulled down, as he places a cautious kiss next to her ear, then trails it down the side of her jaw and along her collarbone. A warm sensation begins to bloom within her, a familiar tingling that she hasn't experienced in what feels like so long, and there's a nervousness associated with it, that if she falls back to what Used To Be, maybe it will happen all over again.  
  
Soon, he's settles into an even rhythm and she has kissed him back a few times; on his own collar bone, as he removed his undershirt; his neck and his cheek, but somehow she can't bring herself to place her lips on his own. Instead, she lets her arms snake up his side, under his own, pulling him closer so they are flush with the other.  
  
"Betsey...Betsey..." He chants it in tandem with his thrusts, the breath against her jawbone warm and heavy with the sweetness of the wine they'd been drinking all night. He lowers his head next to hers in rest as he focuses on his task and she turns her head so her mouth is at his ear, breathes at the spot, and nips at the his earlobe. The gesture earns a shiver that runs the length of his body.  
  
"Eliza..." He practically sobs it into the crook of her neck. He sputters on, almost unintelligibly about how she is so beautiful, how he does not deserve her, how he loves her so much, how he will do anything to make this right, whatever she needs.  
  
She wants to whisper sweet things too. She wants to tell him that she forgives him, that it's alright but she just can't seem to give it life. Instead, she wraps her legs around him tighter, pulling him closer until the weight of him is nearly suffocating her, until there is no breathe to give such treacherous words life. Under his weight and the tighter hold, she looks up at him with her dark eyes. She feels something begin inside of her, a sensation she has not experienced in too long, and it builds and builds until finally it breaks and she arches up into, pushing her head into the pillow underneath her as she closes her eyes and gasps and that seems to be all it takes before he groans and finishes as well.  
  
He relaxes on top of her, peppering kisses to her brow, which she allows but does not reciprocate. When he pulls away, still laying there between her legs, she feels a small stab when he looks at with unfettered happiness, and she thinks, _he believes this to be it_ , the end of their troubles, and she offers a soft smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. He doesn't seem to notice though, and he rolls off of her to the side, pulling her onto his chest. She allows herself to embrace him, to settle there as he pets her head, places a kiss to the top of it, and she closes her eyes as he whispers his love to her, but she doesn't say anything back.  
  
_It is not quite the end_ , she thinks as she drifts off to sleep, _but it may be the beginning of something._

* * *

The summer ends once more and along with the fall, brings the possibility of another surprise, though she says nothing to Alexander. She will not, until she can be sure. Things have been better since the Independence Day party, she has not felt as tense or irritated by his actions, they even have fallen into some kind of strange courting that sometimes feels like before they were married. She knows that things can never be as they were before the Reynolds nonsense, but she understands now it can still be good, if they work for it.  
  
She's on her way out that evening to meet up with Mr. Bayard's wife, also named Elizabeth, and their daughter for dinner and a show. She wants to discuss her potential predicament with her friend, a close confidant who helped her in the aftermath of Alexander's indiscretion, and she worries at how such news may affect any progress they've made. It's times like this that she wishes Angelica were closer, that she were not an ocean away.  
  
The door to the front room flies open and Phillip barrels into the home, eyes wide and panicked, face pale and his chest heaving as if he's run very fast over a short distance. She frowns, stepping back away from him, curling her arm towards herself.  
  
"Phillip, love, whatever has gotten you so riled up?"  
  
"It's---" He takes a deep breath, as if he is about to go into some long winded explanation, but he blinks, looks down with his eyes and when he meets hers again, realizes he has changed his mind. "It is nothing, Mother. Just a silly squabble that I'm working out."  
  
She forces herself to relax and let the frown fall away, not wanting to be too overbearing, as he is 19 and capable of taking care of himself. Arguments and disagreements are a part of being an adult, and resolving them is something Phillip must handle on his own. "Well, I'm going to the show with Mrs. Bayard and Catherine. Do keep out of trouble until I can get home and then we will speak on it, alright?"  
  
His smile doesn't meet his eyes, but she supposes it's one of those things one must accept when raising young men. He is humoring her, she knows, keeping something close until he knows what to do. He is looking for his father, she can tell. Hopefully Alexander has wise words. He usually does, though, for all his other faults.  
  
She's not sure what it is, but as he stands there in front of her, doubt written all over him, she brings a gloved hand to his face, cupping the side of it and pulls him toward her for a kiss to the cheek. He squirms away without thought, and suddenly, it's as if he's still a child and she laughs at him, withdrawing her hand. He smiles sheepishly, chuckling when he bends to reciprocate the gesture. He tells her goodbye. She leaves.  
  
On their way home from the show in the dark, a messenger confronts them on the sidewalk, and Mrs. Bayard catches her arm as her knees wobble beneath her.  
  
She collects herself quickly, and she hurries back home.

* * *

  
"He's gone." She snaps at her husband, full of venom and rage, and she glares at him with every ounce of pain in her body, something he probably takes akin to hate, evident in the way he shies away. "It doesn't matter, nothing but a body in the grou---"  
  
Her words die off into a sob and she cannot keep herself from falling. Alexander catches her, his arms tight around her midsection and she cannot help but fall into him, wide mouth screaming against his shoulder. A body in the ground, a body that she grew, and nursed in sickness, and bound childhood scrapes, a little boy she spun in the air 'til he screamed. All of it, gone, for _nothing_. Every smile, every joke, all of the laughter and the music, was just gone and she didn't know where to find it and she doesn't even realize that she's looking until she opens her eyes and she realizes she's on the ground and Alexander is holding her and making hushing noises, smoothing her hair as he presses a kiss to her temple and whispers to her, _"It will be alright"_ when they both know, nothing will be alright ever again.  
  
She shoves him away, does not want him to touch her, remembering that damned pamphlet along with the cold knowledge that Alexander placed the pistols in his hand and she curls in on herself, arms over the just swelling round of her belly, only a few months gone, and she cannot breathe, she cannot breathe, she _cannot_...  
  
"I miss him," She wails.  
  
"So do I," he admits, and he reaches out to grab her hand, still on his knees.  
  
She snatches it away, and squeezes her eyes tighter. She sinks away from him, her torso twisted so only her back is facing him. His arm doesn't retreat, just hangs there in the air like a beggar, until he sets it slowly on the ground, and he leans forward on it, hanging his head so his hair fell in a curtain around it.  
  
He begins to weep softly. "So do I."

* * *

She tells him she cannot stay in that house, and when she is 6 months with child, retreats with her sister and the youngest children to her father's estate. He stays behind with the the others in their brood. Angelica has taken Phillip's passing the hardest, driving her near insane, so much so that she seems to believe herself to be 15 yet again and every day, asks when he is coming home from school. The both of them can barely take it.  
  
The new boy comes and Alexander is not there and there's a part of her that is so angry and sad, but another part that knows that it makes perfect sense that he is not there, not at her father's estate, not welcome right now on Schuyler pasture and when his cry splits the air and he is announced, she has only Angelica to thank for her support.  
  
He eventually does come to visit, within a week of receiving the letter, with the rest of their children in tow. He greets her alone in the sitting room as she feeds the newborn, and he wisely stands back, his hands clasped behind him, and she can telling he is dying to walk forward, to take the child in his arms but he stays still.  
  
"His name is Phillip," She begins softly, shifting him in her arms as he nurses, caressing his cheek with her finger. "We will not hire out a nursemaid."  
  
She means it as an acknowledgement of his presence, a way of giving him permission to come close and after 20 years of marriage, he seems to understand that and walks over. Gently, almost tender, as if he is talking to someone half mad, he squats to where she sits.  
  
"Eliza, dear..."  
  
Her gaze meets his quickly and her eyes narrow. "Do not Eliza dear me!"  
  
"I just worry, about your health. Would it not be more prudent to hire a lady to take over the services so you could recover..."  
  
She had done so with the past few children, now that they had been able to afford it, could still afford it, but now she snapped, she raged, she roared back and her eyes blazed at him.  
  
"He is my son, and I will provide for him." She snapped, her voice a half growl, clutching the child to her chest in such a way that broke from his feeding and began to wail, but it doesn't break her from the standoff. Alexander rocks back on his heels, hands in the air.  
  
"Alright. Alright, it is your decision." He stands, smoothing his hands against his thighs. "Will you come home, though? I have sold the home on the river and we will now reside uptown. I think..." He trails off, looking up and out the window of the sitting room. "I hope you will like it."

She is barely listening to him as she tries to get the baby to resume his nursing, but she looks up as Alexander goes quiet and finds him looking away, the sun surrounding him in an almost halo like affect, and she doesn't know if it's that, or the way his eyes seem turned downward, at how his shoulders sag, at how miserable he appears to be, but she softens.

"I think that would be best for all of us. We will return with you whenever you judge it to be appropriate."

He seems surprised, and when he looks back at her, he appears grateful at the concession. He smiles softly, but his eyes never turn upward.

"Thank you, Betsey."

* * *

She does like the new home. She finds the lack of memories comforting, but she still has good and bad days, and on a particularly bad one, after snapping at Alexander and spending most of the day avoiding him, after they've put all the children to bed and a small fire is set in the sitting room, he settles across from her as if preparing for a battle. She doesn't look up from her needlework.

"I don't know that I've ever told you," he begins softly, his hand sliding over arm of the chair he sat across from her in. "All the details of my upbringing. I was always very ashamed of where I came from but I wonder..." He trailed off, pausing to swallow hard, breathing in through his nostrils as he blinked quickly. "If you would be willing, I would explain now."  
  
"And will that bring him back to me?"  
  
"It will not." He admitted. "But it may allow you to bring your remorseful wretch of a husband back to you."  
  
"And if I do not want him?"  
  
"I only ask," His tone is even and steady, but she can feel a sense of desperation in it. "that you hear me out."  
  
She had known his mother had passed. And that he'd had it rather difficult on the island, but he had never told her everything. Now he talks about the night his father left. The morning he woke to his mother, cold beside him. About his cousin Peter. About James. The hurricane. It calls to mind the way he always shook like leaf during bad storms, pulling her closer and burying his face in her neck. She always thought it his way to be affectionate, but now it makes more sense.  
  
He hasn't stopped speaking, only rambling in the way he did when he felt like the person he was speaking with couldn't figure out the meaning for themselves. She waits patiently, if not a little irritated; she knows him enough that this is his way of working through it all the way.  
  
"...I have always been right." He says it so matter of factually, softly bouncing his fist on the chair. "It is the only reason I have survived. When no one else did, when no one else was there, every action, every written word, it all became my deliverance." He swallows, looks away, focuses on the ground. "I have always been so certain. So correct. I was the only one who knew best. I have always. known. _best_ , Betsey."  
  
"Until November." Her voice is cold, colder than it's ever been, and she regrets it immediately and is ashamed of herself. He doesn't speak right away, but when he does, it wobbles.  
  
"Until November." He sniffs, and she doesn't look at him so she doesn't see the way his nose scrunches the way his upper lip wiggles from side to side as he subdues his expression. "Now I don't know if I have ever been right about anything. I was a fool, for not encouraging him to settle, for not telling him to ignore Eacker's words. My pride..." He stops speaking, the words choked off in his throat. "I have killed our son."  
  
And it's those words, that level of guilt, that moves her. She has been angry with the part that he played, but Phillip was a man of 19 and had made his decision, as much as she didn't want to acknowledge that. She turns to him, lips pursed.  
  
"You may have given him the weapons, but Phillip was a young man and his fingers pulled that trigger," She began. "For all of the things that I am angry about with you, you did not kill Phillip."  
  
"I didn't save him."

"It wasn't up to you to save him." She sets aside her needlework and leans forward. "If you want to know how I feel, ask me instead of trying to insinuate how I should feel, or how I should be reacting, or how I should be alright. I do not hate you. I could never hate you. Do I wish you would have advised him differently? Yes. Do I wish you would not have given him the guns? Of course, but we both know he would have found them somewhere else."

He is staring into the fire and she wants him to look at her so he understands what she is saying but she continues on anyway. "I know sometimes it may seem like I blame you for it, but I don't. It has just been difficult, these past few years. And I'm trying, Alexander, I am. I know you are too, and I appreciate that. I don't know what else to say."

When he finally looks over at her, the look on his face is pitiful. "Will you ever forgive me? For any of it?"

Perhaps he wants her to say she already has. He probably wants her to walk over to him and take his face in her hands and kiss him and take him to bed, but bites her lip and picks up her needlework once more. "I'm getting there."

He opens his mouth like he wants to add something, but seems to sense there is no more to say so instead, he nods sharply, his mouth twisted into some kind of resignation. He rises and heads up the stairs to their room. When he's out of sight, she looks up and stares after him. She thinks about what he's told her about the islands, about how he is obviously punishing himself more than anyone else ever could and about how he doesn't deserve that. She stares into the fire, leaning back in her chair, and she sighs, closing her eyes.

She is just so tired of it. And she knows she can't keep on like this for very much longer.

* * *

Dueling was a mortal sin, the Priest had so arrogantly explained when they'd sought to bury their child, and one so intolerable that he could not be interred on the Church grounds. At that, Eliza had nearly collapsed and Alexander had fallen to his knees to plead on his sons behalf, for his mortal soul, and after some begging and offers of great cost, the religious man had acquiesced to at least the service itself.  
  
"But there shall be no stone. I do not want it to become common expectation that this sort of behavior will be tolerated by the Church."  
  
As if one could ever forget the place where one so beloved would lay. The Hamilton's has not objected, and they had lavished as they had needed to lay the boy to rest, Eliza supported by her elder sister and Alexander, drawn behind them, practically gray, with his friend Governour Morris at his side.  
  
The ground would not be consecrated, the Priest had told them, not where the boy was to be buried. There could be no marker or evidence other than the freshly dug ground that he rested there, and that would flourish over when the spring came and then no one would know where Phillip was.  
  
No one but the Hamilton's, that was.  
  
It was now fall again in New York City, a year to the day of when Phillip had died, and they take a carriage to the church, to take services before retiring to the unmarked plot in the corner of the grounds. Eliza silently praises God for the wet season, that the grass was plentiful and green, even where autumn leaves blanket it. She did not know if she would've been able to bear it if it were to stay barren.  
  
Alexander stands next to her, and the children stand on either side of them, lined up for the viewing. Angelica is there as well, standing behind them, her face twisted in grief and pain, mostly for what she knows this is doing to Eliza. The baby Phillip, now about 6 months old, squeals in Eliza's grip. Angelica steps forward, touching her shoulder.  
  
"Let me take him, Liza."  
  
Eliza doesn't even seem to hear her, but her grip loosens and her sister peels the infant away. They stand there for a few moments in silence. Angie is there next to her father, fiddling with her hair, staring up and around the yard before tipping her head up at him, cocking it to the side.  
  
"Papa. Is Phillip going to be here soon?"  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, Eliza can see him bite down on his lip to keep from crying out, can see a bit of red at the corner there and she hugs her arms around herself, allowing her fingers to dig into her arms until there are surly half mooned marks. Angelica doesn't miss a beat.  
  
"Alright, children, back to the carriage. Let's let them have some time alone with him."  
  
They stand in silence as Angelica ushers them away. He doesn't look at her, keeps his head bent and his arms behind him. There is a stone bench close to the unmarked plot and Eliza lowers herself onto it, hands in her lap. Alexander follows to stand beside her and, without looking to her, begins to speak in a low voice.  
  
"You may not believe me, but everything I have done is for this family. You and the children, nothing is more important than that, and I am so sorry...Eliza, my dear, I am so very sorry for the past few years. I let my confidence go too far and, like Icarus, my hubris has driven a fall. And I just....I will do whatever i can, with my time left. I will dedicate it, to our Lord God, I will spend weekends at the Church,  I will tutor the children, and draft scripture, and take to a life of solitude and---"  
  
"Alexander,"  
  
They both flinch at the huff of her breath. She's only a little bothered, but she is mostly just exhausted. Part of her reaches to remember the boy she first fell in love with, bright eyes and a smile to bewitch the nation. A quick tongue and eager strides, he was first and foremost at the service of their great, new nation, for which her own father had fought and sacrificed for, so what could she very well complain about?  
  
He stops though, as she speaks his name sharply. He keeps his head bent and she can tell he's nervous, he has no idea where she will go with the train of thought she's embarked on.  
  
She thinks about all of it. The long hours, the weeks away from the home, his frenetic nature. She raises her gaze from the grass and moves over to give him room to sit. He takes the hint, lowering himself onto the stone timidly. His shoulders are bent forward, and he stares down at the ground, his hands twisting in his lap and she can only watch him barely keep himself together. She wonders, _is this our life for the next decade, and the next, for me to punish him for it? For all of his misgivings, even if I feel like my own do not match his_.  
  
Maria Reynolds. Even Phillip.  
  
She takes his hand and she squeezes and his head snaps up, eyes bloodshot and he looks so tired and she brings her other hand up to brush his cheek. His eyes close, almost in relief and he leans into it and she smiles softly, almost sad.  
  
"Alexander." She says again, this time much softer and trying to put every ounce of feeling into it. He looks at her once more, breaking their grasp on her lap to grab the hand on his face. "Let's go home."  
  
He rises first, kissing her hand and bowing low as he does. He turns, and he walks away from the graveside of their eldest child.  
  
Eliza follows.

**Author's Note:**

> William Bayard Jr was a close friend of Hamilton's, and his house is where they took him after the duel, so I imposed his wife and daughter as friends of Eliza's.
> 
> The bit about the lack of marker regarding Phillip was lifted from a NYT article I read that mentioned there was no marker for him, though I think i've seen a photo of something stuck in the ground so that may have changed now.
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://cattlaydee.tumblr.com), come say hey


End file.
